New technology and a generation of workers that prefers communal space are changing the setup of modern workplaces, according to architects who design offices.

Offices used to reflect the corporate hierarchy. Most workers had little say in how their spaces were configured.

The most anyone could do was “pray for a benevolent dictator,” said Mark Gribbon, a senior associate in the Seattle office of IA Interior Architects.

But cube farms — rows of cubicles under racks of fluorescent lighting — are falling out of favor.

While cubes may be an efficient way to carve up space, they can be inefficient in helping manage work flow. A series of cubicles separated by high walls doesn’t work well where employees work mainly in project teams. They also may be anathema to younger workers who prefer more inviting open spaces filled with cozy lounge chairs that have armrest tablets for their laptops and iPods.

“The cost of real estate is huge, and we need to rethink how we use and leverage space to provide for a more productive, innovative work force,” said David Kutsunai, IA Interior Architects principal and director of design.

He agrees there is a shift away from viewing space as a reward to seeing it as yet another work tool. Movable walls and more flexible lighting that attaches directly to individual workstations are making it easier to reconfigure spaces as work flow changes.

Partition heights also have been dropping for several years, making it easier for workers to collaborate with their neighbors.

Microsoft has set aside an area in its offices in the Westlake/Terry Building in Seattle as “touch down” space for its Seattle employees wanting to avoid a trek to the software company’s Redmond headquarters. The space includes communal space and small offices for making phone calls.

“Much more attention is being paid to the internal design of the workplace,” Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said.

More often these days, teams of employees, not executives, are making decisions on office layout.

IA Interior Architects recently worked with a group of employees from Watermark Credit Union in Seattle to determine how their new headquarters should be set up. The bulk of the employees at the fast-growing credit union were under the age of 30. One thing was clear: Staffers didn’t want to be stuck in a cube farm.

To help Watermark devise a workable design, the architects took Watermark employees on a tour of local workplaces.

There were some restrictions on what they could do. Built in the late 1920s, Watermark’s new headquarters building had more interior columns than newer buildings do, and narrow floors. That favored cubicles, but the architects softened the grid of cubes by lowering partitions.

Operable windows, natural light and use of sustainable materials are also important to workers these days. Workers may have more control over their own environment through individual adjustable air vents by their desks and lighting at work stations. Work surfaces also are more likely to be able to be raised so workers can work standing up as well as sitting down.

If there are cubicles, they may be smaller, thanks to flat screen monitors and more efficient storage units.

Companies also face the challenge of blending the expectations of several generations of workers. There are the baby boomers, born between 1945 and 1965, who have worked hard to earn a corner office and who value privacy. There are the Gen-Xers, born between 1965 and 1985, who tested boundaries in the dot-com era with foosball and scooters in the office and beer on Fridays. Then there are the Millennials, born since 1985, consummate multi-taskers who grew up on the computer, talking on their cellphones while listening to their iPods.

Andrea Venucho of Seattle-based Callison Architects has been working with Boeing on its so-called 2016 project, imagining what its work space will be like eight years from now. Getting a baby boomer to work alongside a Millennial is not always an easy task, Venucho said.

“(Millennials) are comfortable collaborating in an open environment. They have learned to focus out visual and audio distraction,” Venucho said. “And they really do accomplish their tasks. It is a comfort level with multimedia and the speed of media.”

When Millennials want privacy, they may slip on a headset; a boomer wants to shut the door.

One of Boeing’s goals was for boomers to mentor younger Millennial engineers by putting the two in a work space where it’s easy to collaborate on projects. Such a space might be as simple as pulling up stools at a common worktable or pushing two movable workstations together.

One suggestion for Boeing was to create more opportunities in its buildings for areas where teams could assemble. Rather than a set of rooms, each with a specific function, space could be organized into flexible environments that could function in four or five different ways, depending on who was using it.

For instance, conference rooms could be outfitted with whiteboard walls for jotting down ideas and a set of panels that could be rolled into place when new teams need the space.

To keep boomers from missing the prestige of a private corner office, other benefits such as more flexible work hours could be added, Venucho said.

“Companies,” he said, “need to make it attractive for them to stay in the work environment at a time they want to slow things down in their lives.”

For their part, Millennials are also more comfortable with flexible work schedules that allow for breaks such as a midafternoon bike ride to clear their heads.

“The boomer wants to go home to enjoy himself in his home,” Venucho said. “The Millennial will be happy to be at work as long as there are some amenities” — such as a nearby bike path.